How does early implementation of learning sight words affect readers being successful in reading?

Seminar Title

How does early implementation of learning sight words affect readers being successful in reading?

Reading/ Sight Words

Kindergarten

Elementary

Reading

Language Arts

“I can read!” Reading is something we do automatically now, but do you remember when you first began to learn to read? It doesn’t just happen overnight, but what if learning simple sight words before sounding out words gave you the confidence to want to learn to read? I implemented teaching all 42 district sight words right away in my kindergarten classroom before practicing sounding out words to read. They showed their excitement when they read the word(s) in a text!

The question guiding my research is: How Does Early Implementation of Learning Sight Words Affect Readers Being Successful in Reading? While conducting my review of literature it was apparent that sight words may really hold struggling readers in a stage of frustration when beginning to read. These words have very abstract meanings to young beginning readers. Through my review of the literature, I focused on four main components of teaching sight words early on before reading. 1) Reading Instruction: whole group, small group, and guided groups. Being able to hone in on multiple ways to teach the sight words would be crucial. 2) Memorization: just plain old memorization of some of the more abstract sight words was key. Those that had hard meanings to understand such as; the, is, of, etc. was important to focus on general memorization. 3) Intervention: those students who are still struggling to memorize or visualize the words in the text were to become part of a weekly intervention group. 4) Assessments: weekly, monthly assessments, as well as isolated and within text reading, was key to reading the sight words. When it came to implementation with my students it was clear that this action research would be beneficial to this group of students I had for the year. My readings on instruction were the key to the success rate for these students. I was able to put all the new knowledge I had read about to skill and work with different groups of students at various times. I was able to use the new curriculum with visual counterparts to guide instruction for abstract sight words. The students were gaining new confidence in themselves and their ability to “read”. I will continue to monitor and work on sight words all year and add more as needed for students who are ready for it. For those who still need support, I will adjust and adapt ways to engage them in learning their sight words at their ability levels.